Marketing is absolutely integral to a business’s success. Without it, consumers may never be informed of a company’s products in the first place. Crafting effective marketing campaigns should certainly be a high priority for your business if you want your company to survive for the long term.
These days, choosing the right platform for your marketing can be difficult. Thanks to the internet, there are now seemingly infinite choices for a company to choose from for advertising space. However, some of the most effective marketing tools are still the more traditional ones. This is the case with direct mail. Below are six unique advantages of using direct mail for your company’s marketing.
It Allows for Direct Targeting of Likely Customers
One of the main issues with many kinds of advertising is that there is no guarantee that your ads will reach the consumers most likely to purchase your products. Your target demographic, for example, may be senior women. However, if you invest in billboard ad space, only a small fraction of those that pass by may actually be female seniors. Direct mail, on the other hand, allows you to target only the people you want. If your mailing list is detailed enough, you could choose to only mail your advertising materials to people in the exact demographic you want to target.
It’s Cost Effective
One of the great things about direct mail is it’s cheap and provides a strong return for a relatively small investment. More expensive options like TV advertising also don’t provide as strong of a punch as they used to. Bloomberg reported that TV advertising rates have risen 20 percent while TV ratings have dropped 33 percent across the board at the same time. On the other hand, direct mail remains cheap, and the amount of people reading their mail isn’t declining either.
It’s Simple to Execute
Certain kinds of advertisements take a lot of expertise and manpower to create. Think, for example, of how much is required to create a TV commercial. You need actors, a director, a camera operator, an editor, a music composer and more. Digital advertisements aren’t necessarily easy to produce either. Creating an animated digital ad requires having the expertise to code and work with complex software. It’s not something that can be competently pulled off by a novice. Direct mail, however, is much easier. While some art design and copywriting is required, creating direct mail is not nearly as complex of a process as creating other kinds of advertising.
Email Isn’t As Effective as It Used to Be
Many companies choose to implement email advertising instead of direct mail. While email has certain benefits, it has downsides that direct mail does not have. The reason why email has lost its edge for advertising campaigns is due to spam.
For many people, spam can be classified as any unsolicited email. Forbes reports that spam accounts for 55 percent of all email received by internet users. Most of this spam is never read. This is not the case for regular snail mail. Most people that receive physical mail at least look at the contents.
Direct Mail Can Be Personalized
One big trend in marketing has been a move towards personalized advertisements. These are ads that have been tailored to target individual consumers in regards to their personal information, tastes, habits and more. While personalization is usually thought of in the context of internet advertising, the philosophy can also be extended to physical mail as well. Direct mail can be altered by computer programs to include the names, personal information, purchase histories, preferences, etc. of individual consumers with the use of computer programs that add the information to the advertisement before it printed out and mailed to those individuals.
People Are More Receptive to Physical Mail
Certain forms of advertisement have lessened in their effectiveness over time. This is of course due to the fact that people are bombarded with ads all day long. After a certain point, the consumer will begin consciously ignoring advertisements. However, people tend to not receive as many advertisements in the mail. Due to this, they are more likely to look over each piece of mail carefully. This can increase your lead conversion significantly.
